Incorporating Physical Environment-Related Factors in an Assessment of Community Attachment: Understanding Urban Park Contributions

Profiling Attached Residents in an Urban Community in the U.S.: An Empirical Study of Social–Landscape Interactions within a Park

Community attachment has been studied predominantly in terms of the social dimensions of community life, which explains what makes residents feel connected to a locality. Following a more recent trend within the community attachment literature, this study examined the role of communities’ physical dimensions in fostering sentiments of rootedness and connections to communities. More specifically, the study sought to better understand the role that urban parks play in predicting community attachment using a discriminant analysis technique to profile attached residents. We selected Discovery Green Park in Houston, Texas, as the study site, where we administered 606 total surveys to park visitors inquiring about their interactions with the park itself, emotional connections to it, and social interactions within the park. We found that strongly attached residents tend to be older, have a greater reliance on the park service and programs, and have meaningful interactions with new people in the park and frequently visit the park in groups to socialize and relax. Additionally, those who are strongly attached to the community attribute greater symbolic meanings to Discovery Green and more strongly identify with the park. The profile of residents attached to the community, given their interactions with the park and its visitors, provides important knowledge to both park managers and community leaders; they can use this information to create conditions, fostering more strongly attached residents who tend to be active agents of positive change in the community.

The Effects of Mobility Expectation on Community Attachment: A Multilevel Model Approach

According to the systemic model of community attachment, high residential stability serves as a precondition on which residents build formal and informal social ties within their communities, ultimately resulting in increased community attachment. However, previous studies have only measured residents’ length of residence in the community to measure residential stability, not considering whether expectations of staying in the community in the future affect residents’ community attachment. This study aims to test if mobility expectation influences residents’ community attachment by employing the logistic multilevel model to analyze 31,159 householders from 31 municipalities in Gyeonggi Province, Korea. The results show that residents’ mobility expectation, in addition to the length of residence, is a significant determinant of community attachment after controlling for individual and regional-level covariates. The results provide implications for urban and regional policies aiming to promote community attachment and participation among residents in the age of increasing residential mobility.

Too Old for Recreation? How Friendly Are Urban Parks for Elderly People?

Urbanization and ageing are the two main processes currently shaping the social environment worldwide. In this context, creating senior friendly cities should be an important target, especially in developed countries, which have the highest rates of population over 60 years old. Our study focuses on the use of urban parks and aims to analyze how friendly their planning, design, and use are for elderly people. We used field observation carried out in four case study parks in Bucharest (Romania) to assess the spatial planning and design of urban parks, and to identify the environmental problems. We applied a total of 5752 questionnaires (16% to elderly people) in the majority of Bucharest’s parks in order to analyze the behavior and perception of seniors in contrast with that of the general population. The analysis highlighted the lack of endowments especially planned or designed for seniors and the multiple problems deriving from their interaction with other visitor groups which make them feel disrespected or unsafe. Our study highlights the need for including the needs, demands, and desires of elderly people in decision making processes, with the aim of creating inclusive and senior friendly parks.